Xavier Lab

Systems Biology of Cell-Cell Interactions

Cells and organisms cope with the task of maintaining their phenotypes in the face of numerous challenges. Much attention has recently been paid to questions of how cells control molecular processes to ensure robustness. However, many biological functions are multicellular and depend on interactions, both physical and chemical, between cells. How do multicellular behaviors emerge from interactions among individual cells? What makes multicellular systems robust to the many challenges that they face?

Our lab investigates these and other questions using quantitative wet lab experiments and mathematical modeling. Our goal is to identify the underlying physical, biological, and evolutionary principles that are common among, and confer robustness to, multicellular systems.